Debut album from Australian Supergroup feat. Jim White (Dirty CD Three, Xylouris White), Chris Abrahams (The Necks), & Gareth Liddiard (The Drones, Tropical Fuck Storm). Recommended If You Like: Will Oldham, Protomartyr, New Testament- era Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Mark Lanegan, Richard Hawley, A Vegas lounge act from another planet. As the world continues to plunge into a fiery blaze of calamity, the Southern Hemisphere’s air warms, its leaves glow green, and the damp earth jolts awake. Springtime is coming to Australia, and it will be ushered in by three sonic shamans who are no strangers to our ears. Gareth Liddiard (Tropical Fuck Storm / The Drones), Jim White (Dirty Three / Xylouris White) and Chris Abrahams (The Necks) are Springtime—a new endeavor that is as much a tonal experiment as it is a meditation on modern-day absurdity. Springtime’s self-titled debut combines free jazz, poignant lyricism crafted alongside renowned British poet Ian Duhig aka Gareth Liddiard’s uncle and improvisation to craft austere portraits of a world paralyzed by shellshock. It’s as monstrously ravishing as it is clumsy in its elegance. Words run into each other with little regard for one another’s injuries. There are sounds which come out of nothingness to wallop and brutalize their fellow sounds. The live recording of Will Oldham’s “West Palm Beach” is treated with love and respect and would certainly be met with open arms by its author. Across the span of seven tracks, Liddiard incants with wild-eyed fury as White and Abrahams lay down stuttering strings, fizzling electronics, and feathery piano melodies. It is within these raving abstractions that one may find an answer to the enduring question, “What fresh hell will this new season bring?”

This album can be described as no less than an explosive masterpiece. Its genius is hardly a surprise with the band comprising Gareth Liddiard from The Drones and Tropical Fuck Storm; Chris Abrahams from The Necks; and Jim White from the Dirty Three. As if that combination wasn’t good enough, Liddiard also recruited his uncle, British poet Ian Duhig, to write some of the lyrics.

FFO: Crime & the City Solution, Protomartyr, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, This Heat.

By Martha